Elliot
by Juliet Etoile
Summary: Somewhat between angsty Harry Potter and A Series of Unfortunate Events


**_July the fifteenth, 2005 L.A. Blue_**

It was extremely difficult for the female to be happy. So many things that happened in her life were tragic and woeful. One thing being the mysterious demise of her parents. It didn't help her situation much, and to a certain point, made her life even more unbearable. The death of her parents was a bumpy start, but the rocky hill didn't stop there.

As soon as her parents' death came to notice, the female was placed with 2 very distant relatives, whom she hadn't met before. She was quite curious, and even nervous, for she didn't even know who the relatives were. The female was driven through very many woods and countries, and from plane, to bus, to car. It was a rather hectic and tiring journey, but she had finally made it. Safe and sound...For now.

Right when the female entered the enormous mansion, she thought that she would have a grand time with people who would love and care for her, but her first empression wasn't entirely right. An old woman with fading-black hair came up to her. She took one look at the little female and she scoweled. "Are you sure this is the girl?" she asked in such a disgusted manner. Her screeching voice sent shivers down the little female's spine. The old woman looked back at the girl and looked her up and down. She didn't look too happy to see her new foster child.

The female turned her head in time to see another woman. This woman looked slightly younger, and her mouth was upturned as if she had dung underneath it. She walked into the room with a casual strut. "She doesn't look like our dearest Elliot." she said in a medium-toned voice. She looked the scariest out of the two, and she seemed to have been the one in charge. She too looked the little female up and down. "_Pfft!_"she turned back into the room she came out of. "Take her to her bedroom." she called from the room.

The older woman grabbed the female's little shoulder tightly, and she pushed her up the stairs and into a long hallway. Instead of going further in the hallway, she opened a door that was to the side. It seemed to be a closet of some sort. Without another word, the woman pushed the female into the closet and locked the door tight. "_Don't speak!" _she screeched. "Children aren't supposed to be_ seen _or _heard_!" she cackled as she made her way downstairs, leaving the little female all alone and clueless.

The little female, Elliot, made herself home in the tiny closet. She was lucky she could actually fit her belongings in there, she barely had enough room for her to curl up and sleep...If she could actually try. Little did she know that she would have to live like that for whole decade. She was so young, and her parents death didn't help for her either, but she stayed strong, just like her mother always told her to do. Remembering her parents already, the female cried herself to sleep with the salty taste of tears still streaked on her rosy cheeks.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

A soft song arouse the female from her troubled sleep. Being fourteen, it was hard for her to sleep in such a small space, but she had managed for nearly ten years. The female listened intently for the song, and she tried to hear where it was coming from. Straining her ears, she managed to catch some of the melody before it drifted away. That was the fifth time that week. She asked her great aunt Careme', but she yelled at her for speaking out loud. She didn't even bother to ask her other aunt, Cozette, she was worse.

Realizing that it was probably time for her to get up anyway, the female opened the door to her room. The sun tried to burst its way through the window-panes, but it was unsuccessful. The female wanted so badly to see the sun, to feel the warmth on her shoulders, but she couldn't. As she daydreamed about the sun, Careme' was walking past her room. "What are you looking at, brat?" she scoweled in the same disgusted manner she gave the female when she was younger. Careme' rolled her eyes and started for the back room, which was forbiddened to the female.

Without further hesitation, the female walked out of her closet and down the stairs to the kitchen, where she met Cozette. "Where have you been?" Cozette asked the female without looking at her. She was working on her make-up in the middle of the kitchen. The female looked at her great aunt. She was even scared of the woman...But why?

"I was asleep, Ma'am." the female replied in a warm, shy, and gentle voice. "But I just woke up, and I was on me way-"

"Don't talk back to me!" Cozette said, her voice sounding more hostile, and full of hate. The female winced at the sound of her great aunt's voice. "Now, get to work." she replied cooly, taking her eyes off her reflection in the mirror and turning them on the pale female. A wicked smile played at her lips. "You're also getting your hair cut today, so be ready for it."

Now feeling much worse for ware, the female slowly and glumly walked to a near-by closet and got out a broom. It was her job to clean all the rooms in the mansion, every single day. People rented the rooms out when they had nowhere else to go, and one thing the female hated more than anything, were people who agreed with her aunts. There were a lot, especially here at the mansion.

Tying her long black hair back into a bun, the female sighed and started to get to work. Working, and cleaning the mansion made her mind wander. But making it wander wasn't really a good thing. The female had day dreams of home, and her mother and father. She also day dreamed the most horrible things. One day, she had day dreamed that her aunts were working as clowns in a circus, but the worse of it was that at the circus, they didn't have fun. No, they had a horrible time.

"_Let's focuss on the good, and then we'll have a go with the bad. That away, we'll be up for almost anything._" she could hear her mother's breezy voice in the back of her mind. Her mother was such an optimist, but not much so that it would get her in danger. She was much smarter than that. The female missed her mother's beauty, and her calming voice...

_Calming voice..._the female thought slowly as she mopped up one of the last rooms. Her mother used to sing her to sleep when she was an infant...And the voice she had been hearing all week sounded like her mother's. Now, the female couldn't wait to be awoken by the sound again. She wanted to know for sure who that voice belonged to...If it were here mother's voice, would she still be alive?

"_ELLIOT!_" came a voice from out of nowhere. A screeching voice filled with disgust. The female heaved a sigh and came back to reality._ It's a chore to have to put up with them two, honestly, _the female found herself thinking. She looked up at the ceiling and then back to the ground. "I'm coming Auntie!" she replied back as she put her mop down and made her destination down stairs.

It was total chaos. Someone had brought a bunch of little children from a daycare to stay for the night, but the children wanted to explore and cause trouble. The female had a much busier day than she had expected._ Looks like I'm not getting my hair cut..._she thought sleepily as she moved herself to her bedroom. The minute she had lyed down, she fell asleep and forgot about the voice, and all the thoughts of the day.

**"An Honest Mistake"**

It was hard to tell whether the female's aunts were happy or not, but for one thing, they sure looked quite smug when the female entered the kitchen the next morning for another round of chores. She looked at the two women innocently as she made her way to the dusting closet where all the dusteres and cleaners were found. Today was dust and wipe day, and it was probably the least bit as tiring as the sweep and mop days.

Aunt Careme' watched the female dampen a rag or two, and she watched as the female readyed-up a batch of suds. She turned and faced her aunts for the first time that morning. She noticed the smug looks on their faces and she simply asked "What?". It was more out of instinct than anything else. It was really not like her aunts to stare at her. They glanced at her briefly from under their noses. But never, since she had been their, had they ever looked at her with such smugness.

Aunt Cozette sneered triumphantly at the female. "You _know_ what. And don't say you don't." she replied with such hate. "_You_, you ungrateful little scum. _You_ decided to sneak into our rooms and steal our jewels." she said even more angrily. "And don't you_ dare _try to say different."

The female couldn't help but blurt out the truth, which was that she didn't do it. She was working, and she was sleeping. Why in the world would she want her aunts' jewels anyway? She didn't care much for money, or fortunes. She wanted to make sure everyone around her were happy, not herself. With a look of complete and utter defeat, the female felt her eyes begin to burn, and her vision blur. She wandered what was next. Would her precious aunties take her away...?

"Good, you admit your defeat." Aunt Careme' said in such a malicious and venomous voice. It was much scarier than her usual screech. It was as if a monster from the female's worse nightmares came alive. "Now, I want you to go back to your room and think of what you did. Then, I want you to clean the entire mansion while we're gone."

The female looked up from her slouchy position. Did she hear right? Were her aunts leaving her at their mansion All alone, and with the whole place in her hands? That couldn't be right...It really couldn't. Her aunts never trusted her with anything. What was the catch

"We'll be gone all day today and tomorrow." said her aunt Cozette with a wide grin. "Now, hop up to your room and stay their until we decide to leave. Go on." she said to the female dismissively.

Without any further hesitation, the female walked up to her room, dumbfounded by how easily she had gotten away from the situation. She opened the door to her room and was quite surprised that it had become unbelievably bigger. She squinted and looked about the room curiously. Something of hers was missing, but she couldn't quite place it.

The female rummaged through her room for signs of something missing. Indeed, she found her answers. She was missing her trunk with all her prized possessions in it. Why would her aunts steal her trunk? She had nothing in it of any importance, really. She maybe had a few hand-carved sticks that she played with as a kid. She used to pretend she was a witch, and she would carve her very own wands. Her favorite one, however, was the one she had made out of redwood. It was special because her mother and father picked out the wood together.

Glad that she at least had her prized toy-wand, she sat on her cusion that she used as a bed for when she slept. She had her redwood wand in her hand and was twirling it absentmindedly when she heard the beauty of a song. It seemed to drift through her mind like a foreign language. She couldn't believe that she had forgotten about the voice...And the fact that it could possibly be her mother.

Standing up and brushing herself off, the female opened her door quietly and followed the sound. She walked down the hall and peeped into the rooms that past her by on the sides. When she had finally reached the end, she noticed that the forbidden door was opened. She didn't wat to make her aunts any madder, but she couldn't resist the temptation. The voice was flowing ever farther into the forbiden room, and she felt that she was meant to find out about it. She had to. If it were her mother, she could go home...

Light bursted through the room so fast that it burned the female's eyes. It made her eyes stream with tears from the brightness. The voice was still singing softly and quietly, but when she reached the middle of the room, the singing stopped so abruptly that the female jumped and turned around, expecting to find her mother, or her aunts, but instead, another figure shown through the opening.

"Why, I knew I'd attract you in here." said the figure by the entance. It seemed to be a rather tall man, but when the figure moved closer, the female noticed that it wasn't a man at all, but a sort of creature. He was brown and he had rather long droopy ears, like hound dsog. He seemed happy to see the female, but she didn't understand...Who was this...creature? And why did he...?

"I'm Septrim, the hopkimp." he replied with a soft voice as he outstreatched his hand for the frightened and confused female to shake. Not knowing what to do in such a situation, the female hesitated to shake the creature's hand.

"Um, I'm terribly sorry." the female started, looking at the creature's hand in such a frightened manner. "But...Erm, what...who...why!" her own hand was trembling softly by her side as if deciding whether to shake the creature's hand, or to pull the female away from it.

"There is no time to explain. You, on the otherhand, need to make sure you give your aunts back their jewelry." he replied. Once again, the female felt a big surge of hatred, because she didn't do such a thing. Stealing was way below what her parents stood for. The female looked at the creature as if she were about to protest, but the creature held out a hand to dismiss her.

"I know you don't have it, but something else does."


End file.
